The influential CatholicVote.org (CV) has produced a video and written appeal to President Trump urging “executive action to protect religious liberty now!”

CV wrote,

You know the stories, now too numerous to count ...

Obama’s notorious HHS Mandate remains in place, threatening Catholic schools and charities like the Little Sisters of the Poor nationwide.

Florist Barronelle Stutzman was just punished by the Washington Supreme Court for declining to arrange flowers for a gay friend’s wedding. Massive fines loom while LGBT extremists are calling for her to be destroyed.

Sweet Cakes By Melissa bakery in Oregon was buried with a fine totaling $135,000 — which forced them to shut down their business.

Religious liberty is in crisis.

People of faith voted for Donald Trump in droves, citing his promises that he would protect religious liberty for everyone.

President Trump has already signed executive orders covering issues from immigration to overseas abortion funding to defeating ISIS …

But today a small minority of advisers to the President are rumored to be stalling executive action on religious liberty.

We haven’t forgotten his promises. We need action now.

Mr. President, it’s time.

National Organization for Marriage’s (NOM) video on the same subject is titled, A Time for Choosing.

NOM states,

… President Trump is considering an urgently-needed Executive Order to protect people of faith from discrimination and retribution by the government because of their faith beliefs, including their beliefs about marriage. But powerful opponents are working to convince him to abandon the Order.

… it's unconscionable and unconstitutional to force people to abandon their religious faith. The first and most immediate step needed to correct this outrage is for President Trump to sign the draft Executive Order protecting religious liberty. Then Congress must act to make it permanent by passing the First Amendment Defense Act.

These two latest organizations join the more than 150 conservative leaders who signed a March 1 public letter urging President Trump to sign the Executive Order protecting religious liberty.

"Le Fou is somebody who on one day wants to be Gaston and on another day wants to kiss Gaston," said Condon. "He's confused about what he wants. It's somebody who's just realizing that he has these feelings. And [the actor] makes something really subtle and delicious out of it."

The New York Times reported that Abdul Halim Abdul Hamid, chairman of Malaysia's censorship board, said, "It is in our guidelines that we don’t allow L.G.B.T. activity in movies in Malaysia. They [Disney] are the ones not allowing the movie to be shown. We approved it with a minor cut."

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon with Archbishop Sorondo and Pope Francis From left to right, unknown person, Archbishop Sorondo, Pope Francis, Ban Ki-Moon, Jeffrey Sachs Ban Ki-Moon and Jeffrey Sachs are long-time, close collaborators with the world's leading New World Order, population control, open borders and climate change extremist and multi-billionaire, George Soros (Centre)

March 15, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — His name is Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, and he hails from Pope Francis’ homeland of Argentina. He was ordained in 1968 as a priest in the diocese of Rome, then as a bishop in 2001. He has an anti-capitalist worldview and is opposed to traditional doctrine. He is the chancellor of two Vatican dicasteries: the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.

High level sources in the Vatican say he has a rather vicious streak, and we experienced it firsthand when our Rome correspondent interviewed Sorondo after a Feb. 27-March 1 conference on “Biological Extinction” that he hosted at the Vatican (Read about that exchange here). This conference caused great controversy since Sorondo had permitted the world’s most extreme population control advocates to speak.

Sorondo’s connection to population control elites is clear, not only from his bringing them to the Vatican but also their feting him and having him sit on the Leadership Council of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, an organization launched by then-U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. On the leadership council, alongside Sorondo, are Jeffrey Sachs and Ted Turner, two of the best-known promoters of coercive population control in the world. Turner held an event at the posh Harvard Club in New York City to celebrate Sorondo’s work on Sept. 25, 2015.

It was hardly surprising that the father of the population control movement, Paul Ehrlich, author of the 1968 book The Population Bomb, would revel in the Vatican pulpit provided him at the most recent conference held by Sorondo. In an email exchange with LifeSiteNews, Ehrlich said he was “thrilled” with the direction Pope Francis is taking the Catholic Church. Speaking to The Guardian newspaper days before the Vatican conference, he suggested that ridding the world of six billion people to bring the population down to one billion would have an “overall pro-life effect.”

At the “Biological Extinction” conference, John Bongaarts, vice president of the pro-abortion Population Council, spoke of the "unmet need for contraception and family planning," claiming that reducing birth rates would help the environment. The "most relevant" part of his presentation on population and fertility trends, Bongaarts said, was about "responsible parenthood."

Rather than confront him at the Vatican conference, Bishop Sorondo suggested that Catholics need to better understand the Church’s teaching on bearing children and that education would lead them away from large families to having two children, and no more.

Speaking in broken English, Sorondo said:

Many times, we don’t know exactly what is the doctrine of the Church – we know some part but not all the doctrine of the Church about the question of the fecundity … And the many, many priests say to me that the great solution for the question of procreation is the education of the womans. Because when you have education, we don’t have childrens. We don’t have seven children. Maybe we have one children, two children. No more. And this is also an obligation for the Church and after and in then I want to say that also in the catechismos of the Church say, ‘the state has a responsibility for its citizens' well-being. In this capacity, it is legitimate for the state to intervene to orient the demography of the population.’ This is also an idea of the Catholic Church.

Bongaarts was pleased with Sorondo’s intervention, calling it completely accurate on education, but added that what is needed was family planning or contraception in order for a woman to “implement her desires.”

In the video of the exchange, Sorondo makes no mention of the Catholic Church's teaching that artificial contraception is "intrinsically evil."

Steve Mosher, president of the pro-life Population Research Institute, criticized Sorondo’s discussion at the Vatican conference. "For anybody who is a bishop in the Catholic Church – God help us all – who doesn’t understand [that] the first commandment given [to] our first parents to be fruitful and multiply has never been rescinded and instead argues for people not to be generous in having children I think fails to understand why God created the Earth and human beings in the first place," Mosher told LifeSiteNews. "Silence implies assent … for him to hear contraceptives praised and promoted and not immediately contradict that position by stating what the position of the Church is makes him complicit in the misinformation that follows."

Bishop Sorondo, however, seems impervious to criticism. Over the last few years, he has led Vatican conferences showcasing population control and abortion extremists, and when criticized, he has falsely claimed he is open to all voices. Yet, major Catholic leaders, even on issues of population such as Mosher himself, were not invited to the conference.

Having invited former U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and population controller Jeffrey Sachs to his Pontifical Academy of Science conference in 2015, Sorondo responded to critics saying, “The United Nations is not the devil. Rather, quite the opposite.” When he held a meeting for mayors that only included leftists, he told a journalist who questioned his choices: “The invitation is open to everyone … All of your friends from the right … we would welcome everyone.”

As he did with his warped vision of Church teaching cited above regarding the need for Catholics to have fewer children, Sorondo has also claimed that Catholics must accept other teachings he deems to be required for Catholics.

At a Dec. 3, 2015 Acton Institute conference in Rome, Sorondo stressed that the pope’s declarations on the gravity of global warming, as expressed in the encyclical Laudato si’, are a magisterial teaching equivalent to the teaching that abortion is sinful.

Sorondo spoke of “global warming” saying that in Laudato si’, “for the first time in the Magisterium,” Pope Francis “denounces the scientifically identifiable causes of this evil, declaring that: ‘a number of scientific studies indicate that most global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases released mainly as a result of human activity.’” He repeated the point later, saying, “Faith and reason, philosophical knowledge and scientific knowledge, are brought together for the first time in the pontifical Magisterium in Laudato Si'."

Comparing the Pope’s teaching on global warming to the Church’s teaching on abortion, Bishop Sorondo said the “judgment must be considered Magisterium – it is not an opinion.”

“It is under Ordinary Magisterium,” he explained, “that abortion is a grievous sin – this is Ordinary Magisterium because there is not the revelation of it.” So there is an assumption of “moral doctrine,” he continued, that even though the majority opinion is contrary, we accept that “abortion is a grievous sin” is Magisterium.

“When the Pope has assumed this, it is Magisterium of the Church whether you like it or not – it is the Magisterium of the Church just as abortion is a grievous sin – equal (it is the same) … it is Magisterium of the Church ... whether you like it or not.”

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Despite what Bishop Sorondo may think, the Church has laid out certain non-negotiable principles that Catholics are obliged to follow if they wish to consider themselves Catholics. The teachings on abortion and euthanasia hold a pride of place over and above the contested theory of global warming.

For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.

OTTAWA, March 15, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — The head of the Military Ordinariate of Canada has released guidelines on Holy Communion for the divorced and remarried that reaffirm the Church’s teaching on the indissolubility of marriage and the discipline of the sacraments.

Chapter 8 contains the “smoking footnote” that appears to open the door to Catholics who are divorced and civilly remarried, and therefore in a state of objective adultery, to receive Holy Communion without a firm resolve to refrain from conjugal relations.

Prelates around the world have offered differing interpretations of Amoris Laetitia. The Maltese bishops notably declared the divorced and civilly remarried, or those in “irregular unions,” may receive Communion if, after consulting a priest, their conscience allows it. The German bishops issued similar guidelines.

McCaig acknowledged in his 11-page document, which is “directed especially to the priests, deacons, and pastoral associates” of the Military Ordinariate, that “there is presently much confusion on this issue.”

But he quoted the Alberta and NWT bishops’ guidelines that state it is “erroneous” to conclude divorced and civilly remarried Catholics may receive Holy Communion “if they simply have a conversation with a priest.”

Along with the Western bishops and Ottawa Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, who endorsed the Alberta guidelines, McCaig insists Amoris Laetitia does not change Catholic teaching.

“It is critically important to note that the integral teaching of the Catholic Church on the reception of communion for the divorced and civilly remarried has not changed,” he wrote.

McCaig also clarified role of conscience.

“It should also be clear that one may not receive Holy Communion merely on the basis of personal conscience, for personal conscience may be in error,” he wrote.

“Consciences are to be formed in the light of the Commandments of God. Consequently, a properly formed conscience cannot be in opposition to God’s revealed Truth.”

McCaig quoted Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, Prefect of the Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith, who has stated that Amoris Laetitia “must clearly be interpreted in the light of the whole doctrine of the Church.”

The “general and ordinary discipline of the Church, as declared in the Code of Canon Law, remains in force,” wrote the bishop.

Canon Law states: “Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion. (Can. 915, CCEO, Can. 855).”

This “places an obligation not only upon those who are divorced and remarried, but also upon those who are responsible for the distribution of Holy Communion,” McCaig noted.

Divorced and civilly remarried Catholics “should be privately and sensitively informed that they may not presently receive Holy Communion,” he wrote.

If such couples cannot separate “for serious reasons,” they must “take on the duty to live in complete continence” in order to “receive absolution in confession which would open the way to receiving Communion.”

CDF’s Mueller stated recently that this requirement “is not dispensable, because it is not only a positive law of John Paul II, but he expressed an essential element of Christian moral theology and the theology of the sacraments.”

Amoris Laetitia notes the difficulties for a couple to live in continence and quotes John Paul II’s stating that the possibility a new fall “should not prejudice the authenticity of the resolution.”

McCaig pointed out that “this practice has been formally recognized as a valid pastoral solution” since the publication of John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio, but is “still an example of an extraordinary circumstance.”

While divorced and civilly remarried Catholics may not receive the sacraments, they must be “welcomed and carefully integrated into the communion of the Church,” the bishop wrote.

“More importantly, they should be lovingly invited into a process whereby they may be reconciled to the Church.”

That means “referral of their case to our Marriage Tribunal” as the “indispensable first step.”

The “positive consequences for hurting and struggling members of the faithful are very great,” he wrote. “But, equally so, any mistaken application of these directives could cause great harm to both individuals and entire communities of faith.”

That includes scandalizing the faithful.

In Familiaris Consortio, St. John Paul II highlighted this as one reason why divorced and civilly remarried Catholics cannot receive Holy Communion.

“ ... if these people were admitted to the Eucharist, the faithful would be led into error and confusion regarding the Church's teaching about the indissolubility of marriage,” he wrote.

Scandal could be avoided “by the voluntary disclosure of a couple who are living in continence or it could necessitate reception of Holy Communion in private or in a parish where the situation is not known,” noted McCaig.

Chapter 8 notes that in “very specific situations the Church’s help for those in irregular situations can include the help of the sacraments.”

Pope Francis listed conditions where there could be a “pastoral exception to the ordinary discipline of the Church,” wrote McCaig.

Those are: the law of gradualness; absence of mortal sin; danger of further harm; and when continence is not feasible.

He directed pastors to consult the Vicar General or to the Chancellor of the Ordinariate when such cases, which will likely be few, do arise.

They will “provide the relevant theological, moral, and canonical advice required,” which “may in such a way to protect the anonymity of the individuals involved, and must always respect the sacredness of the internal forum.”

Bishop McCaig urged people to read the entire exhortation and warned priests and pastoral associates against the two extremes of legalism or “indifferentism.”

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He described the latter as the pastoral practice that would “welcome all, but through misguided compassion fail to call them into a relationship with Jesus and a deeper appropriation of the Gospel.”

The authentic ministry of “pastoral accompaniment” means “welcoming and loving people where they are at, no matter how sinful and disordered their lives might be,” he wrote.

“But it cannot stop there. It also means welcoming them into something and accompanying them somewhere,” added McCaig. “We must welcome them into an encounter with Jesus Christ and lead them into the full life of discipleship and salvation.”

Canada’s Military Ordinariate currently has 46 priests, six deacons and 37 pastoral associates who are responsible for the pastoral care of 81,000 Catholics in Canada’s armed forces and their families, as well as those who work for or attend military schools and institutions.

113 babies saved after two weeks of spring 40 Days for Life

March 15, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – Just two weeks into the spring 40 Days for Life campaign, 113 babies around the world have already been saved from abortion.

40 Days for Life consists of 40 days of prayer and fasting, community outreach, and constant vigil. The vigils are held outside abortion facilities. Eighty-three such abortion facilities have closed since 40 Days for Life vigils took place in front of them. Since 2007, when 40 Days for Life was founded, 12,781 babies have been confirmed saved from abortion, 143 abortion workers have quit their jobs, and more than 725,000 people have volunteered with the movement.

40 Days for Life vigils are taking place in 344 cities around the world this spring, 40 Days for Life president Shawn Carney told LifeSiteNews. Carney said he has been particularly inspired by participants' "courage to overcome cold weather."

He said a major strength of the campaign right now is "the leaders getting better."

"Our training has gotten more developed over the last two years," explained Carney. "We released a new training at the beginning of this year and we’ve done more in-person trainings for leaders … the local pro-abortion activist movement is nowhere to be found in most of the country."

"In Washington, D.C., we've already had five saves during the 40 Days for Life 2017 spring campaign," its leader, Katie Yoder, told LifeSiteNews via email. "That means five babies – five human persons – are alive today. And that's what makes 40 Days so amazing: it gives the pro-life movement the opportunity not only to change lives, but to save them."

"Last Saturday, one mom walked out of the D.C. Planned Parenthood on the verge of tears while repeating out loud, 'I have to get out of here,'" recalled Yoder. "She refused to talk to the clinic escorts, but kept looking back at us as she walked away. Saves can be subtle, but they do happen."

Carney said 40 Days for Life is releasing next week the heart-warming story of a "beautiful moment that … would inspire anybody to get involved in the pro-life movement."

It's "the most inspiring thing I’ve ever seen," Carney told LifeSiteNews. "When we pray and take action and allow God’s grace to work through us, we can save the life of a baby."

Information on participating in 40 Days for Life prayer vigils outside abortion centers can be found here.

‘Toni The Tampon’ cartoon teaches kids that ‘men’ can menstruate

March 15, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — A self-described “genderqueer” and “menstrual warrior” has produced a children’s coloring book about a cartoon character named “Toni The Tampon,” who teaches children that men can menstruate.

Cass Clemmer’s “The Adventures of Toni the Tampon” features a gender-neutral tampon with eyeballs who does things with her other “menstruation-themed friends,” like “Marina the Menstrual Cup,” “Sebastian the Sponge” and “Patrice the Pad,” Mashable reported.

“To any fellow GNC [Gender Non-Conforming]/ trans menstruators out there: I support you. I know that we live in terrifying times, but please know that the menstrual activist community and I all stand with you and #wewillnotbackdown,” Clemmer wrote in an Instagram post. “I am sorry there are so many people out there who feel the need to spit their hatred out at you because you are different, who feel the need to control you because you do not fit within some arbitrary category that they have determined for you.”

A post shared by Toni the Tampon (@tonithetampon) on Mar 14, 2017 at 1:01pm PDT

The idea that “men” can menstruate is along the same lines that “men” can become pregnant, i.e., a product of semantic activism. Transgender LGBTQ activists believe that sex (which they call gender) is not innate but “assigned” at birth. From that point forward people —even very young children — can “construct” their own “gender identity.” Thus, if a biological, natural woman decides to identify as a “trans man,” they would consider her monthly period that of a “man.”

Reaction to "Toni The Tampon" from conservatives and everyday Americans fatigued at the ever-more-radical array of gender-bending media stories was quick and severe.

"’Menstruators of all genders’ is not scientific at all. Thus it is not a good tool for educating kids,” wrote one reviewer on Amazon.

Breitbart writer Dr. Susan Berry said "Toni The Tampon" “is one aspect of the progressive campaign to blur the differences between male and female, and to ultimately create a ‘genderless’ society which bars the commonplace civic distinctions between biological males and biological females in a heterosexual society.”

Indiana pro-family advocate Micah Clark said “Toni The Tampon” is yet another sign that America has become a nation of fools.

“The first chapter of the [New Testament] Book of Romans in the Bible describes what happens with the decline of sexual morality and the acceptance of immoral acts in a culture. Verse 22 says, ‘Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.’ That's where America is right now. We are a highly advanced culture of fools,” wrote Clark, president of American Family Association of Indiana.

Who is Cass Clemmer?

Clemmer dedicates her 2016 book, published by “Bloody Queer Publications,” as follows: "This coloring book is dedicated to the menstrual warriors; those who always color outside the lines."

Apparently a disaffected missionaries’ kid, Clemmer graduated from American University but grew up in the Congo, where, she said, she was taught to hide and be ashamed of her period.

"I didn't know what a uterus was, and I didn't know where this blood was even coming from or why," Clemmer told Mashable. "The only thing I was taught was how to clean it up so the world didn't see it — and then I was sent on my way to figure the rest out myself."

"A lot of us are taught to keep periods to ourselves, to the point that even having a wrapped tampon outside the confines of the bathroom can feel inappropriate," she said. "It's a tough conversation to have with kids, especially when you consider that adults are often struggling with their own internalized period shame … But hopefully, by opening up a fun and creative gateway to discussion, my period coloring book will help make that conversation a little easier."

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One Amazon reviewer of the gender-confusion-promoting coloring book took great umbrage at Clemmer’s “shame.”

“First off as an adult woman I am appalled at this sudden notion that people feel they need to make periods ‘shameless,’" wrote “Ranya.” “When in the world did they ever become shameful? I have never in my life been ashamed of my period nor have I ever heard of someone EVER complaining about how they are ashamed of it. It is a bodily function just as using the toilet.

“Feminism started off in the right direction wanting equal pay, etc., for women but somewhere along the lines someone took an extremely hard left and is now in la-la land of being not just [uber] disgusting and repulsive but a disgrace to our gender,” she said.

Ranya added. “I am also tired of people shoving transgender down everyone's throat and telling me I have to embrace it. No. No, I don't and no, I won't. You've gone overboard, Miss Clemmer in telling people that now men can have periods and can conceive.”

Child abuse?

Clemmer identifies as “genderqueer,” which means she chooses not to affiliate with any particular gender (sex) but floats within the seemingly always-expanding spectrum of identities and orientations. She picked the name “Toni” for her cartoon tampon because it is sex-ambiguous.

Clemmer was so upset that one pro-family leader called her Toni The Tampon kids’ book “child abuse” that she took to her Instagram page last week to announce that all proceeds from the book (for just that week) will go to a group called Trans Life Line, which also promotes gender confusion (which those on the pro-LGBTQ Left increasingly call “gender non-conformity”).

"Teaching children that even men or boys can have periods is scientific malpractice and child abuse," Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, founder and president of the Ruth Institute, told the Christian Post. "This coloring book is a solution in search of a problem. Undermining children's comfort with their own bodies is no service to anyone. Most children who experience gender dysphoria grow out of it."

Singapore Anglican bishop: Parents should be ‘strongly advised’ about Beauty and the Beast’s ‘homosexual content’

SINGAPORE, March 15, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – The Anglican Bishop of Singapore penned a letter to clergy asking them to alert their congregations "about the homosexual content in Disney’s remake of Beauty and the Beast."

The film is "scheduled for screening during the March school holidays," Bishop Rennis Ponniah wrote March 11. "Disney films for children's entertainment are usually associated with wholesome, mainstream values. But times are changing at a foundational level."

"Parents are therefore strongly advised to provide guidance to their children about this remake of Beauty and the Beast and indeed to their children's entertainment choices in a rapidly changing age," wrote Ponniah. He encouraged the faithful to pursue Proverbs 22:6: "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it."

He said church leaders are "working on a fuller advisory to our members in the coming week." Ponniah's letter can be read here.

"Disney has the right to make their cartoons, it’s a free country," he continued. "But as Christians we also have the right not to support their company. I hope Christians everywhere will say no to Disney. I met Walt Disney when I was a young boy — he was very gracious to me, my father Billy Graham, and my younger brother when we visited. He would be shocked at what has happened to the company that he started."

Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, tasked by Pope Francis to create a sex-ed program for teens.

March 15, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) -- A large homoerotic mural commissioned by a leading Vatican prelate at his former Italian cathedral church is coming under strong criticism from Catholic leaders, including founding members of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life, a pro-family Catholic medical doctor, and a renowned Catholic artist and author.

Critics are saying the work commissioned by Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia is "blasphemous," "disgusting," and even "demonic."

“There is a need for reparation for this blasphemous work. And it is blasphemy because of the effeminate depiction of Christ in a context that the artist himself said was meant to be ‘erotic,’” said Dr. Thomas Ward, president of the National Association of Catholic Families and former corresponding member of the Pontifical Academy for Life.

“It is especially insulting that this image is in the presence of the tabernacle, in the presence of Our Blessed Lord. It is no stretch to say that in this context, and with the image’s clearly erotic content, it is demonic,” he told LifeSiteNews.

Paglia, former bishop of the Italian diocese of Terni-Narni-Amelia where the mural hangs in the cathedral, has been elevated to influential levels of responsibility.

After serving as President of the Pontifical Council for the Family, Pope Francis appointed him last year to head the Pontifical Academy for Life and also made him Grand Chancellor of the St. John Paul II Pontifical Institute for Studies of Marriage and Family. As the former head of the Pontifical Council for the Family, he oversaw the development and launch of a sex-ed course for teens that experts criticized as “thoroughly immoral,” “entirely inappropriate,” and “quite tragic.”

Cinalli told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica in March 2016 that the archbishop oversaw every detail of the work.

“There was no detail that was done freely, at random,” he said. “Everything was analyzed. Everything was discussed. They never allowed me to work on my own.”

In the right-hand net, what appears to be young naked children can be seen entangled with the bodies of older men and women (see time 2:45 of video below).

In one instance, one male can be seen with his hand between another male’s legs groping his reproductive organ.

The image of the Savior is painted with the face of a local male hairdresser, and his private parts can be seen through his translucent garb.

Included in one of the nets is Paglia, the then diocesan bishop. Wearing his skull cap, he is depicted as clutching another semi-nude man who is tenderly embracing him.

Cinalli told La Repubblica that the naked people in the nets were meant to be “erotic,” although Paglia drew the line when Cinalli proposed to show people actually copulating.

“In this case, there was not – in this sense – a sexual intention, but erotic, yes,” Cinalli said. “I think that the erotic aspect is the most notable among the people inside the nets.” He later added, “The one thing that they didn’t permit me to insert was the copulation of two people within this net where everything is permitted.”

Dr. Ward questioned Paglia’s recent appointments to influential posts within the Vatican given his artistic sensibilities.

“Given that Archbishop Paglia is in the net of erotic figures going to heaven, and given that he discussed every detail with the painter, the question has to be asked by parents worldwide why was this man put in charge of a prototype of sex education aimed at Catholic children throughout the world?” he said.

“Catholic parents must look at the scale of evil [that has infiltrated the Church at the highest levels]. They have to wake up to what is going on: It’s a moral nuclear wasteland,” he added.

Christine Vollmer, president of the Latin American Alliance for the Family as well as a founding member of the Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life, called the mural “disgusting.”

“This work is absolutely disgusting,” she told LifeSiteNews. “Added to this scandal is the huge debt Bishop Paglia allegedly left in his diocese. Given this, along with his elevation to key posts in the Church, it’s obvious that this man has high-ranking protection at the Vatican.”

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Vollmer agreed with Ward that Paglia should not have been allowed anywhere near the creation of a program intended to form teens in Catholic sexual morality.

Under Paglia’s oversight, the program — titled “The Meeting Point: Course of Affective Sexual Education for Young People” — uses sexually explicit and suggestive images in activity workbooks and recommends various sexually explicit, R-rated movies as springboards for discussion.

“It’s incredible that Paglia was tasked with overseeing a sex-ed program given his involvement in this work and his own self-portrait in it,” she said.

On December 31, 2016 the Academy for Life under Paglia's watch unexpectedly removed all of its members, listing instead 172 "former" members. The move came after Pope Francis had approved new statutes for the academy two months earlier. One revision included that academy members are no longer required to sign a declaration that they uphold the Church’s pro-life teachings.

Mercedes Arzú Wilson, president of Family of the Americas and also a founding member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, said that Academy for Life founders Pope John Paul II and Professor Jerome Lejeune would be “scandalized and distraught” to see Paglia as head.

Wilson said it is “incomprehensible” that Pope Francis appointed Paglia not only as head of the Academy for Life but also as the Grand Chancellor of the Saint John Paul II Pontifical Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family. She also called it “scandalous” that he was selected to oversee the launching of the Vatican sex-education course for teens, a course that she said is “repulsive and destructive to the innocence of children” as well as “contrary to the true teachings of the Catholic Church.”

“I hope that Pope Francis will reconsider the appointment of Archbishop Paglia before it becomes another scandal to his Pontificate,” she told LifeSiteNews.

Catholic artist and author Michael D. O’Brien criticized the mural for giving the viewer the “false message” that “all sexual activity, regardless of how depraved, is blessed by God.”

He gave LifeSiteNews the following commentary on the work:

Ricardo Cinalli is undoubtedly talented, revealing strong influences of Dali, Picasso, and Michelangelo, a mixture of Surrealist and Renaissance styles stirred into the contemporary obsession with sexuality. In the great majority of his work, the nude, including graphic depictions of sexual activities, is primary.

In the mural at the Cathedral of Terni the theme appears at first glance to be Christ as divine fisherman, ascending into heaven with nets containing the souls of grave sinners — a legitimate theme, if one considers Mary Magdalen and numerous saints before their conversions.

However, in this mural the entangled male and female forms, young and old, are broadcasting significant signals that they live in the darkest depths of human sexuality, in a variety of "lifestyle choices,” some tattooed with diabolic symbols. They are being taken upward by the Christ figure to paradise with no apparent signs of repentance.

O’Brien suggested that the work leads the viewer to see the human person simply as a sexual being created for sexual pleasure, not as an embodied spiritual being who has been created and redeemed to share in God’s own life.

He commented:

Unlike the past masters of religious art who have painted the nude — one thinks of Massacio's "Expulsion from Paradise" or Michelangelo's "The Creation of Adam" — in Cinalli's work the human body and sexuality are paramount, and redemption is merely the excuse or the costume in which it dresses for the performance of the artist's real intention: Everyone is loved by God and therefore all sexual activity, regardless of how depraved, is blessed by God.

This false message is in direct contradiction to the urgent imperatives of Sacred Scripture. It also violates the norms outlined by St. John Paul II in his Theology of the Body, in which he devotes a significant section to nudity in art. The dignity of the human person, he emphasizes, must always be respected by both artist and viewer, and any depiction of the naked human body should lead to the contemplation of the whole truth about man — his eternal value. The problem of pornography in the modern age, John Paul II writes, must be assessed according to Christ's words in the Sermon on the Mount, about purity of heart and about its opposite, adultery of the heart. [See Theology of the Body, General Audiences, 29 April 1981, and 6 May 1981]

Fruit Loop is an Edmonton LGBTQ+ arts and entertainment site that invites followers to submit their own posts. These include, Ng discovered, “images of naked men being flogged and restrained” with tips on where to buy restraints and how to use them.

Fruit Loop also links to a how-to article about masturbation. “Your child is even advised to ‘pay for porn’ and ‘visit a group masturbation night at your local sex club,’” Ng said.

Another how-to article they feature illustrates oral and genital sex with an image of a banana.

“Using schools to intentionally direct and connect children to community organizations that peddle sexually graphic content is not safe or appropriate,” complained Ng, a former public school teacher and mother of three.

“It is dangerous, reckless and wrong. K-12 children who access GSAs are often already struggling and vulnerable. Exposure to the sexually graphic content made available through the Alberta GSA Network website puts these children at further risk of harm and victimization.”

Ng is especially worried that they could be linked to sexual predators.

The New Democratic government is in the midst of rewriting the school curriculum to include LGBT-friendly content. In the meantime, it is requiring all schools in the province to allow LGBT students to establish gay-straight alliance clubs. To assist them, the government has funded the creation of the AGSA Network. Its creator is University of Alberta professor Kristopher Wells, director of the Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services.

Donna Trimble, executive director of Parents for Choice in Education, wants the government to acknowledge whether or not Wells is part of the curriculum rewrite.

“Wells and the ISMSS were in charge and clearly were not professional enough to realize that sado-masochistic material is inappropriate for Alberta students as young as five,” she said. “They have proven they have no place in positions of responsibility over our children. I want to know if they are on any of the expert panels the government has set up to advise them on the curriculum.”

Trimble also wants to know if “a crime has been committed in providing this material to K-12 children.” She has asked the Edmonton police to investigate.

Ng claimed that Wells has shared posts from Fruit Loop on his own social media, “including a ‘fast-paced ad’ for sneakers featuring naked young people kissing and embracing in hetero- and same-sex pairings.”

“Clearly,” she observed, “he is not ignorant of the sexually graphic content of [Fruit Loop] posts.”

Adriana Lagrange, the president of the Alberta Catholic School Trustees Association, said her organization “would not want anything detrimental to the health and welfare of students” to be provided on Education Ministry websites. However, she told LifeSiteNews that she could not comment on the sites linked to the AGSA site without further study by her board.

Wells responded to an email query from LifeSiteNews, saying Ng’s was the first complaint that website organizers had received.

“It’s unfortunate that we were not contacted directly,” he said. “We have reviewed all external web links and removed community links to focus on educational and pride organizations.”

A spokesperson for Education Minister David Eggen told LifeSiteNews that funding for the Institute of Sexual Minority Studies and Services was “a conditional one-time grant,” but would not say whether more grants would be forthcoming. As for the “the link that has raised concerns from parents,” it “is being taken down by ISMSS after discussing the matter with the Minister’s office.”

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A quick check revealed that Fruit Loop was indeed gone. So were “Brown, Black and Fierce,” “I Dig Your Girlfriend,” “Queer Cuts” and the “Edmonton Men’s Health Collective,” to name a few.

However, Trimble is not satisfied.

“This material should never have come before the eyes of children,” she said. “That it did so ought to rule ISMSS and Professor Wells out of any involvement with Alberta’s education system.” Furthermore, she said, “This should not have been discovered by volunteer parents. Why didn’t the government ensure this didn’t happen?”

March 15, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – Despite the "outrage and lies" of "right wing Catholic websites," advocates of population control were treated with "fine hospitality" at a recent Vatican conference during which they were invited to speak, one of the pro-abortion presenters reported.

Paul Ehrlich, the undisputed father of the modern population control movement, trashed his critics in a blog post March 7.

"I was somewhat apprehensive about taking my invited place at the workshop on Biological Extinction of the Pontifical Academies of Science and Social Sciences at the end of February," Ehrlich wrote in the post, titled Vatican Visit. "More than 10,000 people had signed petitions to get me (or us) excluded."

Maria Madise of Voice of the Family called it "scandalous" that Ehrlich was invited. The President of Women's Rights Without Frontiers, Reggie Littlejohn, said Ehrlich being invited "perplexed" her because "Ehrlich is anti-woman, anti-child, and ultimately, anti-humanity. It's his kind of thinking that gave rise to China's brutal One Child Policy."

The Center for Family and Human Rights (C-FAM) and the Population Research Institute (PRI) also said the decision to invite Ehrlich was shocking.

Prolific Catholic blogger Father John Zuhlsdorf said the Vatican asking Ehrlich to speak at a conference was like asking "Sweeney Todd to cater your luncheon, [or] Jenna Jameson to preface your book on sacramental marriage, [or] Nero to head up the fire department, [or] Anthony Weiner to manage your social media, [or] Godfried Danneels to head your commission on abuse."

Ehrlich wrote in his March 7 blog post that despite his concern about the opposition prior to the event, his "apprehension was unnecessary."

"The view of the Academies, backed by the Vatican, was that 'all voices should be heard,'" according to Ehrlich. "The workshop, arranged by my old friends and colleagues Peter Raven and Partha Dasgupta, was one of the most productive and informative I have ever attended."

"It was an assembly of stars," he wrote. "The presidents of the two Academies, Werner Arber and Margaret Archer, and their Chancellor Msgr. Marcelo Sánchez Sarondo were open and friendly."

Ehrlich wrote that all of the papers presented at the conference except for one were "excellent, as was most of the discussion."

"There was essentially complete agreement that the drivers of the now-underway sixth mass extinction were human overpopulation, overconsumption by the rich, and inequity (poverty)," wrote Ehrlich.

At the conference, Ehrlich said, "the biggest problem we face is continual expansion of the human enterprise."

"If you can’t take care of the [poor] people in your own society, when you live in a rich society, and so on, it tells us we really need very fundamental changes in our attitudes, our ethics, our morals, how we run the world," he said.

The Catholic Church "has led the way in the battle against climate denial and long ago accepted the overwhelming evidence for evolution," Ehrlich concluded. "In a civilization facing existential risks, it should be praised and supported for this attitude toward science."

Prior to the conference, LifeSiteNews published a list of the most alarming things Ehrlich has said, including comparing human babies to garbage, suggesting forced abortion is acceptable under the U.S. Constitution, and suggesting sex-selective abortion might be a better fate than birth for baby girls.

Conscience vs. truth: Let’s not confuse the two

March 15, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — We are living at a morally turbulent time when it seems that an unprecedented number of religious leaders are justifying heterodox ideas on the basis of individual "conscience." For devout Catholics, the repository of the faith has been built up over 2,000 years and includes the magisterial teachings of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church. These timeless teachings are largely based on Holy Scripture, as well as various Church Councils, and have been passed on by many who are now considered saints in heaven. The faithful Catholic finds solace in the fact that matters of faith and morals do not change over time because the Truth does not change, nor does human nature.

A rejection of the Truth is a rejection of Christ Himself, who said that "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." That is why it is so very disturbing to hear Catholic clergy members of various rank make public pronouncements that seem to elevate private conscience over Truth. A conscience that denies the Truth leads one not to Christ but to sin, which further leads to the death of the body and the loss of the immortal soul. That is why the issue of whether one can dissent from established Church teaching, for the sake of conscience, is of preeminent importance to the serious Catholic. Both Henry VIII and Sir Thomas More claimed to have followed their consciences, with respect to the issue concerning the validity of the King's marriage, but only one of them was right and we consider him a heroic "martyr and saint." The other was wrong and we consider him a "cruel tyrant." Claiming that one is following their "conscience" on any issue, in defiance of Church doctrine, is never a legitimate excuse for sinful conduct.

Of course, this begs the question as to what is the established Church doctrine that faithful Catholics are required to follow. The right answer can usually be found in the Catholic Catechism, which well encapsulates the magisterial teachings of the Church. The liberal and progressive Catholics, including misguided clergy, frequently confuse prudential matters with doctrinal ones. This is sometimes done out of ignorance, but often done intentionally to pursue a liberal political agenda. Examples include contemporary discussions on issues concerning poverty, healthcare, economics, immigration and the environment. Setting aside the fact that conservatives donate more of their own money to charity than liberals, the Catholic Church, as an institution, has long been the largest charitable organization in the world. Yet, as Jesus recognized, the poor will always be with us. Thus, the question is not whether we are our brother's keeper, but how best to deal with issues such as poverty and "wealth redistribution."

The socialist activists and Alinsky-style disrupters would prefer the historically unAmerican approach of taking money and property away from one group of people that earned it, and giving it to another group that did not. It apparently means nothing to them that communism failed dramatically in the former Soviet Union. Nor does it seem to faze them that communist and socialist regimes, including Cuba, China, and the former Obama administration, have consistently and notoriously been anti-religious. Moreover, it is remarkable that these clerical liberals are oblivious to the obvious and indisputable fact that reasonable people can and do differ on such prudential issues as how best to address healthcare, the minimum wage, immigration, and environmental policies. Yet, they generally shy away from culture-defining issues that cannot be reasonably disputed like abortion and same-sex "marriage"—doctrinal issues that have always been considered "intrinsically evil" and must be vigorously opposed by every faithful Catholic of well-formed conscience.

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Many people lay and religious alike remain silent on controversial issues concerning sexual morality and the sanctity of marriage out of cowardice. This was the case with almost all of the Bishops of England at the time of Henry VIII. The sole exception was Saint Bishop John Fisher who, like Saint John the Baptist, gave his life in defense of the sanctity of marriage. Others remain silent out of a fear of offending anyone and a false sense of compassion. This was never the case, however, with our Lord and Savior, who was certainly not afraid to point out to the Samaritan woman at the well that the man she was living with was not her husband. Jesus also admonished the adulteress woman, which He saved from public stoning, to go and sin no more.

Of course, we should welcome everyone into the Church, including unmarried cohabiting couples and homosexuals, as we are all sinners. But we must pray that our Church leaders have enough courage and true compassion to tell them that they should stop sinning, and repent, lest they risk dying in a state of separation from God's saving grace. As western civilization continues its slide toward cultural collapse, those liberal clergy who have chosen to instead elevate their progressive politics over Church doctrine will have to answer for it to our Lord. Are they not the "blind guides" that Jesus warned would lead their blind followers "into the pit?" Tragically, many of those who have been misled will die in a state of sin and confront the source of all Truth with an ill-formed conscience and eternal regret. Therefore, the task falls on all faithful Catholics, lay and religious alike, to continue to give witness to the fullness of the Truth — with clarity, conviction, and courage. In doing so, we can still hope to save ourselves, many of our fellow sinners, and perhaps even our fallen culture.

Charles S. LiMandri is the president and chief counsel of the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund, a national nonprofit law firm that specializes in religious liberty cases particularly at the trial court level. Mr. LiMandri is double board certified and is licensed to practice in California, New York, Washington, D.C., and before the United States Supreme Court. The FCDF website is www.consciencedefense.org

We tried – and failed – to get Pope Francis’ Vatican to take on Planned Parenthood

This article is the third in a series on the Pontifical Academy for Life. Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

March 15, 2017 (ALL) -- Following the events of 2012 I remained undeterred in my attempts to garner support from the Pontifical Academy for Life for efforts American Life League was pursuing at home and abroad. This took me back to Rome in 2014 with a request for Academy president Bishop Carrasco de Paula to help us get a document on the subject of Planned Parenthood into Pope Francis’ hands.

The report entitled “The Vatican Can Help Save Souls from Planned Parenthood in 2015” outlined Planned Parenthood’s denial that God is the Author of Life, explained Planned Parenthood’s efforts to target young people with its vile programs, and gave examples of Planned Parenthood’s work around the world to marginalize Catholic leadership, including many bishops.

Bishop de Paula was duly impressed; he encouraged us to publicize the report far and wide in the Vatican, assuring us that he would do his part as well to see that the Holy Father actually became familiar with it. Sadly, as with all that we had attempted in recent years, our efforts ultimately had no result. The Vatican remained silent. It was as if those glowing words from de Paula and others were meaningless. I was baffled.

The truth of the matter, as we all now realize, is that the Academy itself was destined to disappear in the reorganization of a Vatican bureaucracy that appears to have little concern for the fate of millions of God’s preborn children around the world.

In fact, the most recent Pope Francis appointee to hold the office of president of the gutted Pontifical Academy for Life, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, is himself controversial. Not only was Paglia investigated for alleged involvement in a property scam—a charge he denied—but he has promoted the questionable Vatican sex education program entitled The Meeting Point and commissioned an erotic painting for his church.

The troubling nature of these allegations alone should have led Pope Francis in a different direction, but sadly it did not. This fundamental fact is the most troubling to me. On the one hand we have the clear teaching of the Catholic Church regarding respect for the dignity of the human person. On the other, we have the debilitated Pontifical Academy for Life, weakened by a pope whose agenda is a mystery to us.

We had hoped the Pontifical Academy for Life would continue voicing the truth as taught by so many saints and doctors of the Church. Even in the earliest days of the Church when Church doctors argued over whether the preborn was fully formed or not, there was agreement that abortion is a grave evil. St. Basil the Great found the distinction between formed and unformed too subtle to be a morally relevant teaching, saying, “A woman who deliberately destroys a fetus is answerable for murder. And any fine distinction as to its being completely formed or unformed is not admissible amongst us.”

Early Church writings taught that it was the humanity of the child that compelled us to defend him against the deadly act of abortion. And it is this teaching that became the cornerstone of Saint John Paul II’s legacy and the founding principle for the Pontifical Academy for Life. As the sainted pope wrote in Evangelium Vitae: “The moral gravity of procured abortion is apparent in all its truth if we recognize that we are dealing with murder and, in particular, when we consider the specific elements involved. The one eliminated is a human being at the very beginning of life. No one more absolutely innocent could be imagined.”

Yet today the Pontifical Academy for Life has lost its way, not to mention its members. Pope Francis has created a void that cannot be undone unless he experiences a reversal in his thinking.

The Catholic Church’s authentic teachings have always embodied the clarity of truth unencumbered by political influences, nuances, and confusion. Not so today.

It is my fervent hope that our Holy Father revisits this matter and rights the ship before it totally sinks in the quicksand of compromise. He could surely take a positive step in that direction by reconstituting the membership of the Academy and reinstituting the “Declaration of the Servants of Life” for members of the Academy, requiring them to adhere steadfastly to Church teaching, particularly on matters pertinent to the defense and protection of innocent human beings.

We pray for the Holy Father, asking the Lord to guide him. And we wait—hoping for and relying on the divine will.